The part about transparency and speaking openly really struck a chord with me. Every time I have tried to be transparent about investing and speculation here on HN I’ve been shot down with downvotes, despite that anyone following my advice over the years would have made massive amounts of money. I think people just get scared when you talk about money so openly.
Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]
11–20 of 198 posts
Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]
#12The stack on this story so far (newest ones at the bottom—if I've missed any, can you let me know at hn@ycombinator.com? this is sort of an experiment and we may eventually write software to support building lists like this collaboratively):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25932598 ("Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25904779 ("How WallStreetBets Pushed GameStop Shares to the Moon") 2 days ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25908084 ("The nihilism of r/wallstreetbets") 2 days ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25868680 ("r/wallstreetbets set to private after increased media coverage") 5 days ago
Edit: This story is breaking my stack metaphor, and a graph metaphor would be too complicated.
These are all significant threads with interesting articles that are different enough from each other that I don't think we'll merge them:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25930214 ("GameStop Is Rage Against the Financial Machine") https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25930488 ("How r/WallStreetBets gamed the stock of GameStop")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25929443 ("Robinhood, Trading 212 and others go down amid AMC and GameStop stock frenzy")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25929110 ("GameStop Opened at $300+ Today") - not an interesting article but the thread is better
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25926953 ("The GameStop Fiasco Proves We’re in a ‘Meme Stock’ Bubble")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25927254 ("GameStop Short-Sellers Reload Bets After $6B Loss")
Edit 2: these just in:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25934186 ("Nasdaq says they will halt trading if a stock has unusual social media chatter")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25933581 ("GameStop Mania Reveals Power Shift on Wall Street")
Edit 3: and now this:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25935511 ("Discord bans the r/WallStreetBets server")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25935746 ("WSB Went Private on Reddit")
Edit 4: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25936521 ("Where do we go from here and who is going to step up to help us?")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25937396 ("Ask HN: What the heck is happening with GameStop?")
Edit 5 (the next day):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25957748 ("Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25941431 ("Robinhood is limiting purchases of stocks: AMC, Blackberry, Nokia, and GameStop")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25945447 ("We Are Preparing a Class Action Lawsuit Against Robinhood")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25942240 ("WallStreetBets vs WallStreet: It's not about the money anymore")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25942863 ("Reddit's GameStop, AMC surge is the new Occupy movement")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25944051 ("GameStop: Anger as trading in GameStop shares is restricted")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25942790 ("An Elegant Revolution Followed by Slaughter")
What will become of us? where will it all lead?
Edit 6: well, it's leading here next:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25948391 ("Robinhood is automatically initiating GME sell orders on users' behalf")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25947814 ("Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Robinhood")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25947697 ("Robinhood now has a 1-Star rating on the Google Play Store")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25949618 ("An Update on Market Volatility")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25950685 ("Robinhood is said to draw on bank credit lines amid tumult")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25951390 ("Robinhood Play Store listing went from 329K reviews to 180K in few hours")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25952659 ("Facebook shuts popular stock trading group amid GameStop frenzy")
Edit 7 (another day):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25957748 ("Statement of SEC Regarding Recent Market Volatility")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25958639 ("Robinhood denies claims that it sold GameStop shares out from under its traders")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25957923 ("Interview with u/DeepFuckingValue, who drove the GameStop Reddit mania")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25956329 ("Ask HN: How is GME not a pump-and-dump?")
Edits 8/9 merged:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25954539 ("Robinhood, in Need of Cash, Raises $1B from Its Investors")
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25952300 ("Suck it, Wall Street" – a Taibbi title)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25979673 ("Why Robinhood disabled buys but not sells")
Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]
#13Here's my comment I wrote earlier in my submission that was removed because it was a "dupe" (and I seem to have been throttled as a result of this transgression):
I'm a bit of a centrist leaning to WSB:
- I will agree the fundamentals are off. AMC, BB, GS compared to its industry competitors market cap and valuation doesn't make sense.
- Counter to the above argument, it shows the cracks in the system: Many stocks are simply valued based on votes that traditionally has been in the favor of large institutional investors who are also guilty of market manipulation and closer, faster access to new information that the retail investors do not have.
Overall, I am very worried that we are on the final stretch of the equity bubble that started as a result of the Feds printing money, buying up corporate debt, violating the US constitution. We are witnessing a departure from fundamental valuation and straight into a manic stage.
- I disagree that retail investors have an edge in information rather that existing fundamental analysts employed by large firms never had an edge at all and simply a mouthpiece for whatever price is desired by a select group of institutional hedge funds.
TLDR: I am pleased the little guys are winning but also very worried that we are on the final manic phase of a classic equity bubble we've witnessed two decades ago.
edit: HN is throttling my comments after my CNBC video was removed for being a duplicate so to answer:
"Why is it different now we've been in a bubble for the past 5 years"
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MABMM301USM189S
do you see that vertical line right at the beginning of 2020?
that's what is different now. We are now in a bubble withi in a bubble.
Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]
#14Wall Street is a large scale gambling operation with a public-backed safety net. Apparently they don't like it when people call this out. And they definitely hate it more when outsiders start beating them at their game.
Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]
#15I think the funniest part of this entire phenomenon is that Robinhood is now taking money from the rich and distributing it to the masses in a more literal sense. At least for now.
On a more serious note, I don't get how a stock can be 140% shorted. Does that mean once you return a portion of the shares you borrowed you have to rebuy part of it and return it again? Also when would these short sellers get margin called?
Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]
#16He didn’t have any answer as to the fate of new bag holders he created with his tweet. That was irresponsible. His plan to make hedge funds disclose their positions daily as some kind of a solution to overleverage makes no sense whatsoever. And he’s delusional about research skills of WSB posters as compared to Wall Street analysts.
Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]
#17I think the funniest part of this entire phenomenon is that Robinhood is now taking money from the rich and distributing it to the masses in a more literal sense. At least for now. On a more serious note, I don't get how a stock can be 140% shorted. Does that mean once you return a portion of the shares you borrowed you have to rebuy part of it and return it again? Also when would these short sellers get margin calle…
Yea money is flowing from hedge funds who are short to retail investors as the stock runs up, but once it inevitably moves back down it will be the retail bag holders inflicted with massive losses.
Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]
#18I disagree with Chamath’s take. Chamath sounds intelligent but it’s misplaced. It’s like analyzing Black Friday stampedes with the rationality of product quality assessment, better customer service, and overall better shopping experience. No. That’s not why these people are rushing in. Black Friday stampedes are a cascading phenomenon of FOMO + price trickery. It’s a giant mob with irrational behavior. Let’s not polish it too much. WSB is a cesspool (even after sterilizing it) of awful logic and herd thinking. The real losers are going to be average Joe’s who jumped into this with their Robinhood accounts and got their savings wiped out.
Chamath, Naval, Elon etc all belong to the narrative of decentralization and crypto with their own vested interests. Just the other day I was listening to Naval’s interview with a New Zealand media house - dude is literally urging people to buy Bitcoin.
Unrelated, but I’m going full bonds/cash after seeing the insanity today’s market is, not just GME but look at TSLA, etc. I can stay irrational longer.
Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]
#19Wall Street is a large scale gambling operation with a public-backed safety net. Apparently they don't like it when people call this out. And they definitely hate it more when outsiders start beating them at their game.
Nonsense
Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]
#20I think the funniest part of this entire phenomenon is that Robinhood is now taking money from the rich and distributing it to the masses in a more literal sense. At least for now. On a more serious note, I don't get how a stock can be 140% shorted. Does that mean once you return a portion of the shares you borrowed you have to rebuy part of it and return it again? Also when would these short sellers get margin calle…
Here's a pretty good explanation of that how that can happen: https://nope-its-lily.medium.com/gamestop-power-to-the-marke...